Flower stars.

[andy301]

Would a deeper DOF to bring into focus the background flowers have been better, or is this the best way for this pic?

Minolta Maxxum 5D
Tamron 70-300 AF Macro lens
Focal length: 300mm
F-number: F/5.6
Exp. time: 1/500 sec.
Flash: No

[wal]

The dof if fine, but you might consider reviewing the saturation.

[andy301]

Thank you Wal,
And since i need to still learn a lot of things, explain what you mean by saturation?

[wal]

Well, the simplest explanation that i can use here is (i hate tech/ scientific jargons, ), saturation = "the intensity of the colors". A Highly saturated means hi-intense colors and desaturated means the less-intense colors. Sometimes, when converting to black and white image, one of the technique referred to is "desaturating" the photo.

Imagine you have a red tube and a white tube of water colors.. mixing some white on the palette with red will cause the red colors do desaturate more... known as the "subtractive system"..

Point to remember is that, Saturation is not the same with, Contrast (difference) and Brightness (exposure/lightness)


hi saturated.jpg
an example of a highly saturated pix, more colors, the greens are greener, yellow are more yellowish.. etc etc.. also take care not to over saturate a photo when editing

brightness.jpg
brightness.. more lights are reflected and seen more by the eye but still the colors aren't as intense as a high saturated pic.. the backgrounds/ highlights tends to get kind of blown out or over exposed....

contrast.jpg
hi contrasting a pic, makes the color difference more noticeable.... due to the difference between dark and highlights which are digitally enhanced...


whew.. I hope i got it right.. and the best thing is practicing Post Processing with any software you can get available and you'll get the point better.

Anyway, when i said in my earlier post to consider saturation.. I didnt mean to say your pic is dead wrong. Some photographers like the "muted color effect". less saturated, soft tone, whilst some like to show true detailed sharp colors...all depends to the photographers choice.. Only in my Oppinion is that flower pic like these, are nicer depicted in vivid true colors with sharpness and spot on focus.

I say this pic got a nice DOF.. Because the focus is on one flower only, and the viewer eyes are concentrated on that area... Too much DOF and it would made the pic look too "busy"....

[andy301]

Since i didn't do anything to the colors, this is the way it came out of the camera, should i go into post processing and mute the colors a little? I try to take pictures that don't require too much "touch up" shall we say. However i did sharpen the edges a bit.

[andy301]

OK wal, i reread your reply and now i see what you are telling me. Thanks for the help.

[andy301]

Would this then be a better choice?

[wal]

This is better than the first, looks nice. If you ask any other photographer, almost all photographers, regardless pro's or not will do some sort of processing to their pic. Very seldom pictures that came straight from the camera goes straight to the print, or put up for presentation. It's either adding some contrast color adjustments or sharpening.

[andy301]

Thanks wal,
This has been a great help.
Andy